Crocodile Coffee Table

Let me start by saying, I love junk!  I love to comb through resale shops, garage sales and yes, trash, to find treasures that I can transform.  One morning while I was walking my dogs, I spotted two ceramic elephants that were very large.  They were in front of a house set out for the garbage man to pick up.  I ran my dogs back to my house and proceeded to get my loot!  I textured and painted them, and my sister then proceeded to use them as a table base out by her pool.  I don't have pictures, but they were gorgeous.  Another time I spotted a hope chest that is still in use in my home at the end of a bed!  With a little touch up and a lot of paint, almost anything can be transformed into something beautiful.

One day while combing local resale shops, I honed in on a small coffee table that had a lot of potential.  It had a pineapple base, and a raw plywood top.  It was very shaky, but for $15.00, I decided to take a chance on it!  I brought it home and my husband was able to firm it up with some dowel rods and a lot of Gorilla Glue.  http://www.gorillaglue.com/ If you have never heard of Gorilla Glue, you are missing out.  I am here to tell you, I would hang from a 100 foot pole glued together with Gorilla Glue!  The stuff is awesome!  I have glued tile, brick, wood, metal...almost anything you can imagine with this stuff.  This is a secret weapon for "trashy" girls like me!

I brought my little beauty home and went to work.  As I mentioned the top of it was raw wood, so I knew I had to put some type of texture on it.  Based on my product knowledge, I decided to use Smooth Absorbent Texture by Proceed.  http://www.proceedsystem.com/  In my creative opinion, this table called for crocodile.  I used a crocodile stencil that I purchased at Epic Paint.  (they have a great selection!)

As you can see in the first picture, my dog, Sookie, wanted in on the action!  She helps me a lot!  Sookie is 8 months old, this is what she looked like when we brought her home:

After the entire top was covered with the crocodile texture, I sanded it down where the stencil overlapped to create a smooth, even surface.  Next I base coated it with a metallic paint by Modern Masters http://modernmasters.com/default.asp called Tequila gold.  I painted the bottom pineapple with Tequila Gold as well.  I also used English Brown, and Warm Silver (my fave) on different parts of the table to create contrast.  With the help of Lucy, my trowel, I applied dark wax so it would settle in the crocodile crevices.  I also added faux nail heads all the way around the table.  Several coats of polyurethane later, the table was finished.

Got any junk stories of your own?  I would love to hear about them!  Also, there are some girls who love junk as much as I do...check them out, they have a neat story!  The Junk Gypsies

Have a great day!

Nee' Nee'